Michelle and Michael see the world

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We arrived in the beautiful city of Paris and were pleasantly surprised that our hotel was across the road from the Arc de Triomphe. There were so many amazing buildings and monuments. We took a walk along the Seine river and lucky for Mick there was an aviation exhibition beside the river which kept him amused while i took a few hundred pictures.

Statue in Paris city

The lovely and busy Arc de Triomphe

One of the many pretty streets in paris

Outside the Louvre

Before we left many people in Australia told us that the French are lovely and the rudeness thing is a myth..well they lied. There are many lovely people who helped us with directions on the streets, however most waitresses have been to rude classes, this is bizarre for a profession working for tips.

Michelle enjoying her A$15 cup of coffee, don't ask how much the lemon tart was!

Michelle pulling her best french face

Getting lost in Paris

Standing on top of the tunnel that Princess Diana's car crashed in.

Highlights of our days in Paris would have to be the amazing Eiffel tower (which we walked up to appreciate fully rather than taking the lift) and the boat tour along the river.

Looking at the Eiffel Tower at dusk from boat tour

Looking up the tower...

Micki and Miche sharing a champagne on top of the Eiffel...a little romantic even...

View from the top of the Eiffel

The toilet found on top of the Eiffel tower

Miche eating waffles on top of the tower, surprisingly Mick had a beer

At the end of our week in London we figured out how to book a Eurostar fast train ride to Paris then went to see the famous Portebello Road in London to see it’s markets. Unfortunately we couldn’t find the famous door from the Notting Hill movie, but met some interesting people…

Long flight to London which included a one hour stop over in Vienna where Michelle was felt up by large Austrian lady because she peeped on the metal detector. Arrived at London immigration and they let Micki in without even a second glance, surprisingly. After a few heated debates we figured out the London tube system and met Michelle’s friend Lisa who put us up for a week and was our tour guide. First day in London was the typical cold weather and pouring rain but we were pleasantly surprised to find the rest of the week warm and sunny! Coming from Thailand it was great to be in a country where they spoke Australian. It was also pretty clean with a really efficient train system-you don’t wait more than a few minutes for a train.

We visited Big Ben, Hyde Park, the Queen’s house and as many places from the Monopoly Board as we could (i.e. Leister Square, Trafalgar Square, Euston Rd). We took a double decker bus around the city to see the sights also.

Bangkok is the busiest place we have ever been. Just being in the city is an adventure in itself, the motorcyclists are crazy. The most number of people we have seen on a scooter is 5- (the family wagon).

On our first day we visited the Grand Palace which was amazing in both size and detail. In the afternoon we visited more temples including the the marble temple and the reclining Buddha where we dropped 118 coins into 118 metal buckets so that the gods could hear us and grant us good luck.

On day two we drove to the north of bangkok and took a ride down the canals in a long-tail boat to get to the floating markets. Such a different way of life-see photos!

Today we took an original Thai style cooking class! We learnt how to make the best curry pastes and a range of other dishes. Surprisingly, even i could cope with the chili. The other nice surprise about being in bangkok at this time of year is that it is the annual ‘national vegetarian festival’, so all the shops serving vegetarian food display little yellow flags in their windows…perfect.